Bernard Knight - The Tinner's corpse

As they returned to the road, de Wolfe considered the significance of what the boy had seen. ‘To leave the road and go to that clearing would be pointless in itself, so it might be it was used only for an ambush.’

Gwyn scratched his crotch vigorously as an aid to thought. ‘If Knapman willingly followed a man into the wood, he must surely have known the fellow. What lone traveller would otherwise risk going into the forest with a stranger, in these days when outlaws and trail-bastons abound?’

De Wolfe agreed with his officer, but neither had any more ideas of what might have happened on that fateful Monday.

They reached the road and dismissed the mill-man with their thanks. As he loped away down the track, de Wolfe cursed the fact that his idiot son had been unable to remember any better details. ‘He couldn’t even tell us whether that last man carried a staff!’

Gwyn tried to placate his master. ‘Yet we have far more information now, thanks to the boy. We had nothing at all before. The time and the place fit, and at least the poor child was definite about Knapman’s identity.’

Frustrated, they abandoned their search and continued their journey, arriving in Chagford in time to hear the noon bell ringing from St Michael’s tower, a reminder of Walter Knapman’s generosity. De Wolfe again battened on the hospitality of the manor lord, Hugh Wibbery, and they went first to his demesne, which was really a large barton rather than a manor house, outside the town on the south-west, where the land rose towards the moor.

Wibbery reminded de Wolfe of his own brother William — not in appearance, for he was a short, thick-set man with a weatherbeaten red face, but for his single-minded interest in his estate. The Wibberys had been in Chagford for half a century, taking over the tenancy from the Bishop of Coutance after Ralph Pagnell’s family had died out. They were sometimes known as the de Chagfords, but Hugh was more concerned with his fields and sheep than with local politics, keeping out of town affairs as much as possible. Indeed, he envied the nearby de Prouz family at Gidleigh Castle, for they owned most of the land around Chagford, though not the town itself. It was true that he reaped much benefit from market dues and the trade brought in by the tinners and their merchants, but he left most of the administration to his bailiff and steward, preferring to walk his fields and pastures, a farmer at heart.

The timber house with a shingled roof had a wide stockade around it but, like John’s own home at Stoke-in-Teignhead, this was more of a stock fence than a defensive fortification. The drawbridge over the encircling ditch had not been raised in years, and as the trio entered, the coroner noticed that its outer end had sunk completely into the turf. Wibbery greeted them civilly enough, considering that manor lords often had cause to groan when official visitors claimed accommodation. However, a knight and two servants posed no problem — unlike a passing baron or bishop with a considerable entourage. Then the disruption and cost in entertainment, food and fodder might be considerable. A visit from an itinerant noble, or even the King, could be ruinous.

The coroner was offered a mattress in a small room off the solar behind the main hall, but graciously declined, saying that he was used to sleeping in far worse places than beside the fire-pit in the hall. Gwyn and Thomas would bed down in the servants’ hut in the bailey outside — but all this was hours hence: de Wolfe had much to do that afternoon and evening.

Risking a worsening of his clerk’s melancholia, he sent Thomas to call upon the parish priest, knowing from experience that the little man had a gift for worming out confidences, especially from the clergy. As an excuse, Thomas was to enquire about the best site for an inquest the next day and to learn what arrangements had been made for burying the murdered tin-master.

Gwyn’s own task might also have been predicted: he was to tour the alehouses and inns of Chagford to see what gossip he could pick up. For a small town, there were many such taverns, at least six — but with the influx of tinners for the coinage ceremonies and the frequent arrival of metal merchants both from England and abroad, food, drink and accommodation were in frequent demand.

As soon as they had eaten at the manor, the three went their separate ways, de Wolfe to Knapman’s house below the church. Harold the steward had already been busy and a large cross of black cloth was nailed to the main door. In the larger room, the shutters were closed and a length of purple velvet was draped over the crucifix hanging on the wall. The maids went on tiptoe and Harold had even ordered the ostlers to muffle the horses’ feet with sacking as they took them across the yard. It seemed to John that this somewhat excessive mourning had been the steward’s idea: none of the family seemed prostrate with grief.

The widow and her brother-in-law received the coroner in the smaller of the two ground-floor rooms. The other was being kept for Walter’s body when it arrived. Joan wore a black kirtle, of obvious expense and modern style. The gold embroidery around the neckline and hem was matched by a gilt cord wound several times around her slim waist. The gold tassels on its ends almost brushed the ground, as did the tippets of her dangling sleeve-cuffs. As another gesture to bereavement, she had hidden her dark hair under a snowy linen cover-chief, secured by a golden band around her forehead. A wimple of white silk concealed her ears and neck. Altogether the effect was alluring rather than poignant, and the impressionable de Wolfe realised again why young widows rarely stayed unmarried for long.

When he entered, Joan was standing near the window opening, staring out into the front garden pensively, but she turned and offered him her hand. De Wolfe, uncomfortably aware that his appreciation of her was out of keeping with the morbid circumstances, took her fingers and gave a stiff bow. He made some stilted expressions of sympathy, amid throat-clearings and grunts, then stepped back to acknowledge her mother, Lucy, who sat near the fire. Matthew had risen from his place at the table, where he had been toying with a cup of wine.

Another man was sitting near Lucy and Joan briefly introduced him. ‘This is my elder brother Roland, a tanner from Ashburton — as was my first husband. He has come to offer our mother and me support in this unhappy time.’ Her voice was low and soft, as her violet eyes looked up at de Wolfe from under long dark lashes. Incongruously he found himself calculating how Chagford compared with Dawlish in the time it would take him to ride from Exeter.

Roland of Ashburton muttered a grudging acknowledgement of his sister’s introduction. He was a stocky man of about thirty, who looked like an artisan, uncomfortably dressed in his Sunday-best tunic and breeches. He glared at everyone except his mother and sister.

‘The carter should be here well before dusk,’ said Matthew, uneasy at the tense atmosphere in the room, which seemed to be due in large part to Roland’s presence. He was unsure how they should start this conversation with the coroner, which he assumed would be some sort of interrogation.

Joan invited de Wolfe to sit and they joined Matthew at the table, leaving the older woman and her grim-looking son near the hearth. The hovering Harold brought more cups and wine with a small basket of fresh wafers, thin sweet discs of pastry straight from the oven.

De Wolfe cleared his throat again. ‘I must hold the formal inquest tomorrow — not that in the circumstances it can achieve much,’ he admitted. He told them of the evidence of the lad from the mill, but emphasised that this was not firm enough proof that the death had occurred there, however suggestive it might be.